Passage of a Smile
Artist: Yves Tanguy (French, 1900-1955)
Date: 1935
Dimensions:
Painting: 25 5/8 × 21 1/4 in. (65.1 × 54 cm)
Frame: 33 1/2 × 29 1/4 × 2 1/2 in. (85.1 × 74.3 × 6.4 cm)
Medium: oil on canvas
Classification: Paintings
Credit Line: Purchased with funds from the Libbey Endowment, Gift of Edward Drummond Libbey
Object number: 1938.84
Label Text:The objects and locations in Surrealist compositions like Yves Tanguy’s are often described as dreamscapes—strange yet familiar at the same time. The organic rock- or reef-like forms in this painting might have been inspired by Tanguy’s childhood travels to the seaside in Brittany, France. The desolate setting, though, is as ambiguous as the forms—is it a beach, or is it the ocean floor?
Tanguy adds a tangible sense of space to the composition through the careful arrangement and differing sizes of the objects, which lead the eye back through the depths to a low horizon. The parallel rows of forms on the left suggest a path—perhaps the passage through which the fleeting expression of the title can travel.
Tanguy adds a tangible sense of space to the composition through the careful arrangement and differing sizes of the objects, which lead the eye back through the depths to a low horizon. The parallel rows of forms on the left suggest a path—perhaps the passage through which the fleeting expression of the title can travel.
On view
In Collection(s)